Can insurers really double the recent record annuity sales numbers?

ORLANDO – A panel of five at the LIMRA 2025 Annual Conference agreed unanimously Monday that annuity sales will double again by the end of 2030.

The annuity market is benefiting from favorable trends, economic conditions, demographics and supportive legislation. It all helped sales nearly double since the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic to $434 billion in 2024. Sales are expected to be in that neighborhood again this year, LIMRA projected.

Annuity sales were just $219 billion in 2020, noted Bryan Hodgens, senior vice president and head of LIMRA Research. He moderated a panel of four industry executives and a session titled "A Strategic Blueprint to Double Annuity Sales."

Since 2020, we've seen massive growth in the S&P 500, along with it, a lot of volatility.

"I think what we also saw during that volatility, then, with this backdrop of this economic condition, was this flight to protection, and this flight to annuities," Hodgens said.

Among other factors, interest rates rose over the past five years, while products and distribution evolved. It all added up to see a new breakout star on annuity product shelves – the registered indexed-linked annuity – and the products themselves gaining a new respectability in some circles.

If that wasn't enough, the baby boomer "Peak 65" era is upon us, with 11,400 Americans turning 65 each day. Continuing to innovate products is the key to the industry being able to respond to the demand, said Liza Tyler, head of annuity solutions at Transamerica.

"How do we think about the evolution of income with consumers that are still looking to not only have some safety, but also have an element of income capabilities that bridge between a guaranteed income element of FIA and a variable income element of variable annuity?" she asked.

There are now about two dozen companies with their own versions of a RILA and 2024 sales of $65.6 billion represented a 38% jump from 2023.

All about that income

The best way to double annuity sales is to educate and publicize the power of guaranteed income, the panelists agreed. Then figure out ways to get that income into Americans' financial plans.

"I think that's the next big holy grail for us, is where these products fit, from a solution standpoint and a planning standpoint," said Chris Blunt, CEO of F&G Annuities and Life. "Because it's still not easy. It's not as simple as you go through an accumulation process, you hit go and for an advisor, everything gets executed."

Momentum is definitely high for annuities, fueled by the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019 and the follow-up SECURE Act 2.0, signed into law in December 2022. The bills removed barriers to offering annuities inside retirement plans, and the industry has responded.

The stamp of approval from Congress is slowly melting the frigid attitudes toward annuities from many traditional advisors. There is even talk of a third SECURE Act with additional safe harbors for annuities in employer plans or portable annuity options between jobs.

Corey Walther, president of Allianz Life Financial Services, is seeing the change in attitude from advisors.

"There are absolutely new advisors who, in some ways, were maybe anti-insurance or anti-annuity, and they're coming into the fold," he said. "They're coming into the fold, not just from an income planning perspective, but we're seeing arguably even high-net-worth clients who, frankly, shouldn't have a guaranteed income planning concern."

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